On the eve of the duel between Khamzat Chimaev and Nate Diaz, which will take place on September 10 as part of the UFC 279 tournament, the fighters, along with members of their teams, staged a grand brawl involving hundreds of people. Due to the possibility of an explosive continuation of the conflict, the management of the promotion decided to cancel the traditional press conference.

A hot episode, of course, will warm up interest in the upcoming battle, and yet here, it seems, we managed to go along the sharp edge, avoiding the initiation of a criminal case. But the infamous Conor McGregor, during an episode similar in terms of the degree of hatred, could not do without interaction with law enforcement officers. The Irishman attacked the participants of the UFC tournament, for which he almost landed in jail.

The fighter was able to pay for the sins in the church.

“It’s all about the drugs”

In April 2018, the most popular character from the world of mixed martial arts at that time, Conor McGregor, who was missing the next UFC 223 tournament, decided to attack the bus, in which the participants of the planned evening of fights were just there. Inside the vehicle, among others, were fighters Michael Chiesa, Ray Borg, Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Rose Namajunas and, of course, lightweight champion belt contender Khabib Nurmagomedov.

The Irishman was only interested in the latter. Some time before the incident in the parking lot, the Russian fighter had a conflict with Conor’s sparring partner Artyom Lobov. There were other indirect reasons why McGregor decided to take this dubious step. On social networks, they communicated with Khabib exclusively in the context of mutual insults that crossed all reasonable boundaries. And the head of the UFC, Dana White, suggested that Conor went crazy for a very prosaic reason.

“I don’t know what happened to McGregor. Maybe it’s the drugs, who knows, White mused on social media.

Regardless of the true motives, it is worth noting that Conor took the matter seriously. The Irishman gathered a team of two dozen people, took advantage of the help of accredited journalists from The Mac Life, entered the parking lot of the Barclays Arena, where the vehicle was located, and began to commit indecency. The hooligan broke the window of the bus with a metal cart, and his accomplices joined in the vandalism. Further, the ex-champion, grabbing a metal fence, went to break into the salon, but could not cope with the guards. Having not achieved the goal (if the goal, of course, was the massacre of Khabib), the attackers retreated.

Photo: © AUG / face to face / Global Look Press

The beginning of the end of a career

The incident did not make much of an impression on Khabib. At least he won his championship fight against Al Iaquinta. Rose Namajunas and Karolina Kowalkiewicz also appeared in the octagon, where they won victories. But Chiesa and Borg were less fortunate – one had numerous cuts on his face, the other had damage to the cornea of ​​u200bu200bthe eye. Their participation in the card had to be cancelled. Artyom Lobov, Conor’s accomplice, was also excluded from the tournament.

“Today’s incident is the most disgusting thing in the history of the UFC. Shrapnel from one of them slashed Michael Chiesa’s face and nearly hit Rose Namajunas. One of our employees broke his finger in an attempt to stop the Irishman and his associates, White quoted MMA Fighting as saying.

Dana White / Photo: © Chris Unger / Contributor / UFC / Gettyimages.com

“The police are looking for Conor McGregor at the moment, his plane will not be able to take off and has no right to leave New York,” the UFC president was quoted by CBS.

Conor did not have to look for a long time – the Irishman himself decided to surrender to the police. The fighter was in big trouble, with an unfavorable outcome of the case, McGregor faced up to seven years in prison. MMA fans, who thought it was all part of a show and a staged performance, were surprised when the star fighter appeared in public in handcuffs.

However, McGregor did not end up behind bars, and the episode did not seriously affect his career. The Irishman made a deal with the investigation – as a result, the punishment for him was five days of community service, attending anger management courses and monetary compensation for damage to the bus.

Community service for Conor consisted of visiting Brooklyn churches, where he had to do manual labor. As they said later, the fighter got along with the ministers, he also had a thorough heart-to-heart talk with the priest. The course of anger management was limited to a few days, as for monetary compensation, it was definitely not a problem for the Irishman. Conviction did not threaten McGregor, his visa was not canceled either. In just a few months, he reached Khabib Nurmagomedov in the octagon without any obstacles, although this meeting for yesterday’s champion was actually the beginning of the end of his superstar career.